Terry 's Reviews > Ship of the Line

3 - 3.5 stars

_Ship of the Line_ takes up where _Beat to Quarters_ left off and we follow Hornblower as he takes command of a ship of the line, the two-decker 74 gun HMS Sutherland . The novel is chock full of events as Hornblower captures a French trading vessel off the Spanish coast, storms an enemy battery, and even manages to cut out an enemy ship at harbour, all in about 48 hours. Indeed, our intrepid captain seems destined to go from success to success as he pursues a very fruitful cruise, though his successes are somewhat tarnished by both the fact that his commanding officer is not only an exemplar of the incompetence of wartime bureaucracy, but also the new husband of Lady Barabara Wellesely (his erstwhile love interest from the previous volume), and the ever present plague of his own self-doubts.

Hornblower really is something of a strange ’hero’. Full of self-doubt and apprehensions about what others think of him, he is driven to pretend to be what he is not, when simply being himself might more easily garner him the praise and admiration he craves. Constantly concerned with appearances and propriety he gives up chances for happiness simply to do what is expected of him. He is as harsh in his judgements of others as he is of himself and I pity his wife Maria and the few friends he has that more often than not suffer for their devotion to him. Another reviewer noted an almost autistic-like manner to Hornblower’s character, especially in his interactions with others, and I have to say that this observation rang true to me. The only other option that comes to mind is to characterize him as something of a misanthrope, which might be a bit too far, but Horatio is certainly a unique individual in the annals of hero-dom.

In my never-ending practice of comparing Hornblower to Jack Aubrey I couldn’t help but note that Forester often goes out of his way to point out Hornblower’s tone-deafness to music. I wonder if Patrick O’Brian purposely made his own Napoleonic hero-caption a devotee to music purposely in response to this. I would once again opine that I think the Hornblower books suffer for the lack of another character of equal presence against whom the reticent captain can play off…Bush and Gerard are simply too devoted to their captain to work in this role, though I have hopes that the captain’s coxswain Brown might play a larger part in future stories.

This was a fine entry in the series and certainly keeps the pace moving at a good nautical clip. Be forewarned though: the cliffhanger ending may require that you pick up the next volume, _Flying Colours_ right away.